TNA rejects SU invitation for public debate

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 December 2003, 16:15 GMT]The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Monday rejected the invitation extended by the Sinhala nationalist political party, Sihala Urumaya (SU), for a public debate on the "Vaddukoddai resolution" and "Thimpu principles," saying that they cannot enter into "any debate with any political or any other group which has not got a mandate from the Sinhala people," according to the TNA parliamentary group leader, Mr.R.Sampanthan.

The SU leader, Mr.Tilak Karunaratne, had sent an invitation to the TNA leadership last week stating that the Vaddukoddai resolution and the Thimpu principles have been based on "unfounded and baseless arguments and distorted history."

The Tamil United Liberation Front at its convention held in 1976 at Vaddukoddai in the Jaffna district resolved to work for regaining the lost traditional land of Tamils in the country as a last resort when the successive governments had rejected proposals put forward by the Tamil moderate leadership to share powers under a federal arrangement with the majority community. This resolution has come to be known as the "Vaddukoddai Resolution."

The delegation of Tamil parties and Tamil militant groups had put forward four principles to find a political solution to the Tamil question at the negotiating table held at Thimpu, capital of Bhutan, in India, in 1985 with the then United National Party government led by the then President
J.R.Jayawardene with the facilitation of the Indian government. Those four principles have been known as the "Thimpu Principles."

The TULF in the 1977 general elections contested on the Vaddukoddai Resolution and obtained a massive mandate for the establishment of a separate state for Tamils in the northeast of the country, political sources said.

"The TNA has got a mandate from Tamils to regain their lost rights and traditional land in the country. But the SU has not got a mandate from theSinhalese people to espouse their cause," said Mr.Sampanthan.